Memory Experiments

¶ … Modality and Frequency on Serial Recall As noted by Ari & Faith (2012), individuals studying written texts show superior recall of material, versus subjects who have the same texts read to them aloud. This is true on tests of free recall, matching, comprehension, and spatial recall. Perceptual resources are more channeled when studying a text in written form. The results of the experiment performed by Ari & Faith confirmed this, noting that the recall of the subjects was substantially enhanced when the material was presented to them in written form.

This is true not only of adults but also of children, despite previous studies which have indicated that children have a preference for auditory dominance in mnemonics. In a recent study by Gelman & Noles (2011): "Preschool-age children did not exhibit auditory dominance.

Instead, children and adults flexibly shifted their preferences as a function of the degree of contrast within each modality, with high contrast leading to greater use." The results of their experiments performed on children, similar to that of Ari & Faith's on adults once again, suggested the benefits of visual reinforcement on memory. As well as the mode via which information is transmitted, frequency can also affect the ability to remember data. In serial recall, high-frequency words are more easily recalled than lower-frequency words.

However, "it has been suggested that high-frequency words are better recalled because of their better long-term associative links, and not because of the intrinsic properties of their long-term representations" (LeBlanc & Saint-Aubin 2005). Still, even in an experiment designed to test this hypothesis, although "the usual advantage of high-frequency words was found with pure lists and this advantage was reduced" the results indicated that frequency enhancement was "still significant with mixed lists composed of five low-frequency words" (LeBlanc & Saint-Aubin 2005).

This finding of the experiment suggested an associative effect for low-frequency words in lists when paired with high frequency words although frequency still had a significant impact on all forms of mnemonic recall. Another study further suggested based upon its results that frequency enhanced memory but "that an item-to-item effect is clearly present for early but not late list items, and they implicate an additional factor, perhaps the availability of resources at output, in the recall of late list items" (Miller & Roodenrys 2012).

In the experiment performed in class, one group of subjects was presented with 15 commonly-used words on flash cards and were required to recall them in the order presented; another group of the same number of students was given 15 uncommon words on the same type of flash cards which they were also asked to recall in order.

The experiment was repeated in the same format, only in the second test trial, the first group was given the 15 common words aloud; the second group given the 15 uncommon words aloud, which they had to recall. Visually learned data was found to be far easier to remember, supporting the hypothesis of the Ari & Faith study. Subjects needed far fewer trials to complete the task of recalling the word groups.

The group requiring the fewest trials overall was the group that had learned the data from the visual stimuli of flashcards of commonly-used.